As a student at Cambridge in the 80s I religiously attended Eden Baptist church. The minister at the time was Roy Clements. I would say Roy Clements is one of the most influential people in my life (after my family). In my opinion he was the best preacher in the UK at that time (Don Carson was the supporting act, Mark Dever was the intern!). For me his special gift was his ability to take a passage from the Bible (any passage) and explain it in such a way as to make its interpretation crystal clear. So clear I often felt as if I’d just interviewed the author to get the inside take, the director’s commentary, on the passage. I greatly benefited from his preaching and often thought the main reason I was in Cambridge was going to church (as opposed to boring engineering lectures).
Although I have had no contact with Roy in the last twelve years, he has clearly been facing some challenges. In fact he seems to have completely disappeared. I recently came across some old sermons of his on tape. They don’t seem to have any copyright so I’ve digitized them and plan to make them available as downloads. The first is a series on Colossians preached circa 1991.
I would love to hear old sermons of Roy Clements, his books were great. Go for it!
He is a gifted speaker. He used to have a website at royclements.co.uk but it’s been taken over by a domain squatter. Some of the content is being archived at http://www.courage.org.uk/articles/articles.asp?CID=4 , though.
have you posted the messages by Roy Clements. I’m looking specifically for messages in 1 corinthians.
thanks,
charlie
I think I was at Eden just a bit before you, Steve. I remember Don as “supporting act” but Mark was yet to enter the stage. And I’d agree with your assessment of Roy in those days; he was one of the most formative people in my Christian life, too. I think I’m actually glad that he has so largely disappeared in more recent years, though; as a leading proponent of “gay Christianity” he could have done a whole lot of damage to the evangelical scene in the UK.
I read a few of his more recent writings, and he sounds very sore about the treatment he received, but it would have been fair to comment that he would have had to step down from all those Christian organisations if he had “just” left Jane and family to live with another woman.
Still all very sad.